Tyrrel Bay captivates and boats have a hard time leaving

May 22, 2007 Tuesday

Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou

Gosh, hard to believe we have been here in Tyrrel Bay for 5 days already!  This is one of those places where it is easy to “bury your anchor” as the saying goes – meaning to put down one’s anchor and not move again.  We have been visiting with other cruisers, either on their boats or ours, playing dominoes and eating pizza and thoroughly enjoying this area.

Bill’s sister, Helene, was supposed to fly to Grenada today to visit us for a week or so; but she is starting a new job instead.  So hopefully we will see her another time and place.  As it turns out, it is good that her visit got canceled; because we want to remain here in Carriacou in hopes of getting our bimini changes completed.  Nothing is ever easy.

As I think we mentioned earlier, the guy who does stainless steel work departed for a 5-week holiday the day before we arrived here.   Petra, the worman who does bimini sewing, will not make the bimini changes and shade panels until we have the new stainless steel support bars in place at the rear of the cockpit.  Catch 22.

Well, looks like we might have things worked out.

We talked to Tim, who manages the little boat yard here in Carriacou.  Tim helped us locate two 6-foot pieces of 3/4-inch 316 stainless steel tubing in Grenada and arranged for these to be delivered on the ferry tomorrow.  Tim isn’t sure how we will pay for these.  We might have to find the seller and pay him when we get to Grenada.  Then we talked with Goerk, (pronounced like York) a local machinist, who said he can fabricate these SS tubing pieces into what we need.  It should only take Goerk a few hours to complete this little job.  As soon as the bars are in place then Petra will come back to our boat and obtain exact measurements.  She has all the materials in stock (thank goodness our bimini is white because that is the only color she stocks) and should be able to complete the job next week, giving us time to spare before we must be in Grenada on June 3.  We have a haul-out scheduled at Spice Island Boatyard at 8:00 a.m. on June 4 for our annual bottom job, so we must be in Prickly Bay by afternoon June 3.

This week saw our first physical injury on the boat.  Bill dropped a floor locker lid on his toe.  His toe was at the short end of the lid near the rear edge hinge, so the full weight of the 4-foot long lid fell squarely on top of his big toe.  It looks nasty and he definitely will lose that nail.  He wouldn’t let me get near it.  So much for medical training.  Useless if the patient refuses to let you see the wound.  By the third day it was causing shooting pains so he finally relented and agreed that a needle should be inserted to relieve the pressure.  But he insisted on doing it himself.  Wasn’t going to let me touch that painful toe.  So I burned a needle and had the hydrogen peroxide ready.  He inserted the needle in several places and released a lot of blood and cleaned the injury well.  Then we put on a bandage and wrapped in tape so that the loose nail won’t get knocked off quite yet.  The pain subsided noticeably and he can walk again.  Still looks nasty and will probably take more than a year to grow a new toenail.  Bet he never lets his foot get near a raised floor locker or deck locker again.  Lessons learned by pain are usually learned well.

One day I heard a siren, which is a strange sound on a small Caribbean island.  I told Bill that it sounded like a police siren – but they don’t have police cars on this island.  He suggested that it might be an ambulance – but they don’t have ambulances on this island.  Then he suggested that it might be a fire truck.  Well, never saw a fire truck; but it was a fire siren.  It has been so dry on a lot of the Caribbean islands this year that they are having problems with brush fires.  Carriacou had a brush fire.  It was soon brought under control.  Our boat is covered in brown dust.  And the islands need the rain so each family can grow their own vegetables.  Hope it rains soon.